


Wingspan

by ayatsujik



Category: Stigma (Manga)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 16:40:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11810001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayatsujik/pseuds/ayatsujik
Summary: Stork and TIt's first time getting to know each other (in the Biblical sense). Underage consensual sex warning. Omake toWaiting for Birdsong.





	Wingspan

**Author's Note:**

> Repost of an old story to AO3, lightly edited. A post-series omake to my earlier story [Waiting For Birdsong](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11809962).

He's almost completely regained his sight, not that he needs to see to know how much he's growing. His head comes to Stork's shoulder, now; the shoulders of his shirt are uncomfortably snug, and he has to stretch them till they become looser. His ankles peep out from beneath the ends of his jeans. Stork's had to buy him a new pair of sneakers, and he says they'll also buy new clothes at the next town they come to. Tit tugs at the small ponytail just brushing the bottom of his collar, and nods absently. He tries not to say too much. His new voice grates on his ears like sand, too deep and too rough, and Stork still thinks Tit doesn't see the faint crease between his brows whenever Tit speaks.  
  
Things are changing. Getting a little difficult. Stork is becoming somewhat distracted, somewhat quieter. He takes two days to empty a pack of cigarettes that used to last a week. He meets Tit's eyes less often, almost as if he's afraid of doing so, judging from the recent reserves of tension in his shoulders and the set of his lips. This gets worse whenever people ask if they're father and son. Stork's taken to saying, I'm his guardian, ignoring the faint curiosity that spreads across the face of the person who asked.   
  
Tit's had to stop holding his hand after they attracted a whole host of stares in one town, some hostile and some clearly disgusted.  
  
He sleeps apart with Stork, now, at Stork's request. Usually Stork makes him take the bed and settles down on a mattress on the floor wherever they happen to be lodging in. All Stork says is, you're not a child anymore, and Tit gives in rather than intensify the distress twisting Stork's features. Tit's been with Stork long enough to sense that Stork is doing this for *his* sake, and he loves him too much to argue. Not even when Stork avoids all but the most necessary of contact.   
  
On infrequent nights Stork will tell him to go back, first, saying he has...business...elsewhere, and only returning the next morning. Tit's mother used to tell him to respect the private matters of adults; some things, she said, were not for anyone else to know. The memory prevents Tit from trailing Stork on his mysterious excursions. And Tit thinks he understands, but comprehension refuses connection with his emotions. He lies in bed on the nights Stork has 'business', staring at the ceiling with empty eyes. He wakes up in the mornings to find Stork sprawled on the mattress with tousled hair - damp, as if he'd showered, though it eludes Tit *why* he should have needed to shower.   
  
He decides that he understands nothing, nothing at all.   
  
Tit misses, with a fierceness that almost hurts, the loose warmth of Stork's embrace. The rough affection of Stork's palm ruffling his hair. If he turns to the side and studies the forbidding lines of Stork's back, at night, he's assailed by the sense of a chasm forcing them apart, one that won't close even if he stretches out his physical arms to that hard vest-clad back.   
  
But Stork is still nearby: that fact is the only thing shackling his fears. This, Tit tells himself repeatedly, must suffice.   
  
*  
  
Another reason Tit doesn't argue about the new spaces Stork puts between them: he's also changing, becoming strange in ways that vaguely frighten him. He's been staring at Stork's hands, lately, at callused brown fingers pouring coffee or handing over dollar bills or tucking in blankets. He's caught himself dreaming of pulling those fingerless gloves off Stork's hands and then pulling them towards him, putting them on his chest, his belly, his thighs. The first night he dreams this he wakes to a wet, sticky mess in his briefs that is trickling down his inner thighs, and he crushes a shocked noise in the back of his throat, hurrying to the bathroom as quickly and quietly as possible. He has to take his briefs off and wash them, pegging them up on the towel rail to dry.  
  
He stares at the ceiling for the rest of the night, his eyes wide and suspiciously, shamefully hot at their backs. Cold water and scrubbing with a towel doesn't cool his too-red cheeks, or the irregularly fast tripping of his heart. His skin's tingling; he desperately avoids looking at the figure on the floor, and is horribly glad Stork's facing away from him.   
  
(the next morning, thankfully, his briefs have dried, and he yanks them on again before Stork wakes up.)  
  
The dreams only worsen.   
  
After almost two years of having slept in Stork's arms it's impossible to erase the details of the experience from his mind. He remembers the way Stork smells, cigarettes and whiskey and traces of some darker, earthier scent, with a clarity that aches. Recalls snuggling into the curve of Stork's long, lean body and pressing his face to Stork's chest, his nose being tickled by strands of chest hair poking through the thin cloth of Stork's vest. The occasional weight of Stork's leg over his own. Waking up to the lines and angles of Stork's face, softened in sleep. Waking up and stretching against the warmth of tanned skin over muscle; listening to Stork's deep, rough breaths. It is grotesque, to him, how the comfort of these things has mutated into his current discomfort.  
  
The memories weigh him down. They are sore like an open wound, in his current state. It gets to the point where he takes to slipping his pants and briefs off after the light's been extinguished, wrapping a towel from the inn around his waist. At indecently early hours he tosses the towel into the laundry basket in the bathroom and pads back to bed, exhausted. Stork's looking worried about the shadows smudging the undersides of his eyes, but he only says, go to sleep earlier if you need to.  
  
Tit tugs at his ponytail and stares at the table, worrying his lower lip in frustration.  
  
*  
  
Stork thinks there is absolutely no way to ask or to tell Tit about the moaning.  
  
(Eventually, he knows, he will lose control, and the thought plunges spikes of fear into his heart. Stork remembers all too well what Stalk did with him. Did to him. He would rather die than repeat the same thing with the most important person in his life. He thinks, they should start using separate rooms. This will be the case at the next inn they stop in, and damn the added expense. Tit will always be with him, and it does not matter *how* they are together as long as he is not hurt. Never never never.)  
  
The essence of Tit's existence will never change: this much, he will swear to. Not even if it's become painful to look at Tit now, whose supple, lengthened limbs are teetering on the edge of grace; his face has been planed out, thin and brown and sporting cheekbones more exquisitely arched than those of any woman Stork beds. (It is the same mouth, and yet when it smiles, now, it is something else altogether.)   
  
Stork closes his eyes, fighting the crushing emptiness of painted mouths and palely curving flesh, the sultry voices clogging his ears. How much longer he needs to wash off the scent-dregs of hard liquor and cheap perfume, he does not want to consider. He gulps his cold coffee and leaves only the muddy residue of grounds in his mug.  
  
*  
  
One night he's jolted out of a restless doze by another body crawling under his blanket. Even half-asleep he recognises Tit, and the shock of his presence, absent these past months, makes him stiffen. Tit's skin is cold and faintly damp, as if he just towelled off after a shower, and his shoulders are shaking.  
  
Stork opens his mouth to protest, to order Tit back to the bed, but then Tit's burying his head in Stork's chest, gripping fistfuls of his vest and crying, his voice a notch higher and rising, I don't know what's happening to me, I can't stop it,  _I want you to touch me again_. It's the last straw when Tit blindly reaches up and tugs Stork's head down, welding their mouths together with clumsy determination. Stork registers dampness on his cheeks. Tit, he realises with another shock, really *is* crying. He jerkily lifts his hands, runs his fingers through soft golden strands of hair. Rubs Tit's back awkwardly, trying to soothe him, and Tit breaks the kiss, butting his head into Stork's chest and pushing closer like he's trying to join both their bodies.  
  
I'm sorry, Tit's wailing, his voice hoarse and choked with tears. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I  _don't know_. I, I...  
  
It is late, and the enormity of Tit's assault on his senses is wrenching sanity from his brain. Stork's not thinking, doesn't want to think anymore even if he could. His fingers fumble, grasp Tit's chin and yank it up before he initiates a second kiss, nudging Tit's mouth open and plunging his tongue inside. Their pelvises are grinding together, providing proof enough that desire is mutual.   
  
Stork closes his eyes as his right hand seeks out the button of Tit's pants, the other one raking Tit's T-shirt up his stomach and over his shoulders. Below the thin fabric of Tit's briefs is all heat and smooth smooth skin over his arousal; the strangled plea that escapes Tit's mouth when Stork touches him snaps the last threads of Stork's self-restraint. And then the inexorable plunge into low, urgent moans and slick caresses, the salty-sweet dampness of willing flesh in his mouth and under his hands.  
  
*  
  
It occurs to him to trust, blindly, in tomorrow. There is nothing else to do.  
  
*


End file.
